Third Time's the Charm
by hotdogfish
Summary: Sort of sequel to Bug Catching Conspiracy, but don't need to read that first. Sometimes everything goes wrong. Sometimes it goes wrong two times in a row. After two failed shiny captures, this is the story of when everything goes right. Loosely based off events in my Ruby (or possibly Emerald) game.


When exploring the jungle surrounding Fortree City, people usually describe the raging rivers, deep gorges, or the rare pokemon.

The whole area was full of waterfalls, ponds, lakes, and streams, all of which slowly cut through the rock, leading to some fabulous sights. Surrounding all the water was some of the lushest plants you would ever see. Ferns over six foot tall. Moss practically dripping off trees. Then there was the trees themselves, giants with canopies so thick, you could hardly see the sky.

There were tropius in the area, along with absol, feebas, kecleon, and the ever elusive surskit. Route 120 even had some ancient ruins rumoured to hold registeel, ever since it had been locked away in ancient times.

There is one thing that people usually neglect to mention: the rain. Fortree City has the highest average rainfall in all of Hoenn, on both a monthly and yearly basis, something that is important for would-be visitors to know.

The hike into Fortree had been torturous. It started raining when I was still four days south of the city, and it was still going strong when I arrived.

I was dripping water when I walked into the pokemon center. Not just me though, my pack was dripping too and, once I opened it to start unpacking, I found out that everything inside was wet as well. My clothes were soaked, my tent was soaked, even my "dry"-sac had soaked through, though my sleeping bag inside was only damp.

The pokemon center only had one washing machine and one dryer, both of which were being used by other trainers. I'd refused to spend another night in a damp sleeping bag, so I took it, and all my clothes, to the laundromat and paid to wash and dry them. My tent couldn't go through the wash, so I'd had to drape it on the furniture in my shared room, one piece of sopping wet nylon at a time. My bag was even worse; even though it was small enough to be out the way, it was made of heavy canvas and took about four days to fully dry.

My pokemon situation was not much better. My blaziken and lairon had threatened me with physical harm if I sent them out their balls again before we got to dryer weather, my linoone stank of wet fur, and my manectric kept accidentally sparking me.

Eventually, I got myself sorted out. I battled the gym and won the badge, I got all my stuff dried and mostly packed, and I bought a cheap hair dryer to keep my two mammals dry. I was ready to leave Fortree City for Lilycove City, home of Hoenn's biggest department store, and one of the best places to set off for the two island cities and the pokemon league. All I wanted was for the rain to stop so that I could set off.

The climate did change as you traveled south, getting drier and warmer, but it would take three or four days to get that far. I figured that if there was a two day break in the weather, then I'd be able to get far enough south to miss the worst of the rain once it started up again.

So far I'd been waiting a week for the rain to stop, which, with the four days when I didn't want to leave, meant that my two weeks of free rent at the pokemon center was almost up. Sure, there had been dry spells of a few hours, or maybe an entire afternoon, but I wouldn't get very far in half a day.

I'd explored the immediate area pretty well, armed with just my pokeballs and the clothes on my back, for minimal drying once I got back, but the novelty was starting to wear thin. I'd even started fishing for a feebas, ignoring the fact that I hated fishing, and that I certainly didn't have the patience to beautify one enough to evolve it. The only upside to fishing was that it was outside and, because I wasn't moving much, I could set up an umbrella and be no more than damp once I got back.

Finally, the winds changed from the north east, to from the south. In other words, it stopped raining.

I pulled on my pack and practically ran out the pokemon center door, and I wasn't the only one. Five of us left the center together, but we all split up once we got out the city bounds. It wasn't that we hadn't gotten on well with each other over the past week, but if one of us saw a rare pokemon, we didn't want to have to battle it, as well as everyone else for the right to capture it.

I'd been walking for a day and a half before anything of note happened.

I'd seen several flocks of wingull and pelipper since arriving at Fortree City and, like everyone else, I'd started tuning them out. They were loud, individually weak and not worth trying to battle as an entire flock. This flock in particular, however, was not only very close, but also had a flash of green mixed in with it's normal blue and white.

I gasped, let my manectric out her ball, and took off into the jungle with her in tow, apparently leaving my lairon behind.

"Use thunder wave!" I yelled to her as we ran. "Up there!"

I pointed at the flock, only partially visible through the thick canopy.

A second later, she released a huge wave of electricity, paralyzing everything in range. Unfortunately, this included myself.

I fell to the ground with a splat, getting mud and leaves on my face, in my clothes, and all the other places where you don't want mud when beginning a two week hike. Slowly, I got back up, wincing as my leg muscles twinged in protest. It wasn't the worse paralysis I'd had, probably because she'd been sacrificing power for range.

It didn't work anyway, either she hadn't been unable to reach the wingull, or they were just as good gliding around when paralyzed as when not. I saw one even further off in the distance, in another gap in the leaves.

"Go after them," I told her, tossing her my blaziken's ball, "tell him to weaken the green one and to bring it back for capturing, you're on crowd control."

She sprinted off in the direction of the wingull, and I slowly hobbled after her. I quickly heard sounds of battle ahead and I tried to hurry up. It was then that I noticed that my lairon wasn't with me; it was very uncomfortable to ride on her back, but it would still have been a lot quicker than the pathetic pace I was keeping. Well, hopefully she was still back at the road and hadn't gotten lost.

I still hadn't caught up to my pokemon when the I heard the battle stop, which is to say that all of their noise ceased, apart from some angry squawking. My two pokemon reappeared, my blaziken carrying a flailing, slightly singed wingull with green wingtips and tail.

My manectric looked victorious.

My blaziken looked pissed.

I tossed a great ball at the wingull, catching it first try, then grabbed my blaziken's pokeball from my manectric.

"What?" I demanded.

He snarled at me, waving a taloned paw at the surrounding plants.

"What?" I asked again, starting to get confused.

He growled again, this time shaking one of his legs at me.

It was then that I noticed his stringy, wet feathers. Oops.

"I'm sorry!" I immediately apologized. "It's not raining and you're the only one that had a type disadvantage against it."

I waved the wingull's ball at him in emphasis.

"It won't happen again." I promised. "We're going south and everything, another few days and it'll be sunny again and there won't be any wet leafy plants and you can walk around and stuff."

He merely grumbled at me, before poking his ball and disappearing back inside.

"C'mon, lets go find that big, metallic, lump of muscle." I told my manectric, then started trailing after her as she sniffed out our trail back to the path.


End file.
